I'm going to do the unknown and challenge the stigma associated with distance education.
First of all, which of you have actually done DE? And what basis have you got for your bold claims? Sure there are oddballs among the distance educated, and while the ratio is perhaps a little higher than elsewhere,there are oddballs everywhere.
I will admit that system has innate flaws, the most obvious being the lack of contact between teachers and students. We're not all moronic clams. Really. Contrary to popular belief, being a DE student doesn't cancel out a social life. On the contrary, a heap of DE kids have quite fulfilling social lives, and I don't mean pottering around the farm milking cows. They drink and party hard. They're out there doing stuff while you're cooped in your stuffy unairconditioned classrooms stuck in your little inschool social hierachy.
The DE kids develop without peer pressure, meaning they're less likely to adhere to a 'herd mentality' - you know, that one. Being in the same group of people for several years confines the mindset. A lot of the inschool kids are limited in comparison. And there's the added thing that a heap are overseas, or dancers/athletes/actors...their lives are anything but dull. Some are impelled by circumstance into homeschooling; medical reasons or isolation. For them it's easier to learn via DE because it offers a flexibility and convenience normal school does not.
Others choose to complete DE while travelling. I know one guy who's been all around the world. The alternative to DE overseas is international school. Unless you're in an English speaking country I doubt the education is significantly better - and I have spoken to people who have been schooled both ways, they agree with me. In not so flash int schools you often see two or three grades lumped together in a class, with scrappy teachers that charge ludicrously for their meagre qualifications.
It may be dull at times but there is a good side. You can sleep in till noon, never have to brave the weather or annoying yr 7s. You can get up and get a drink or something to eat when you feel like it, do what ever subject takes your fancy of a particular morning, not have to fret about time or clocks or late buses. The teachers believe your excuses and you can get extensions on assessments more easily. And you actually come to like your teachers. No, I never saw that coming either but it did. The teachers are wonderful, they run around faxing you things a couple of days before the HSC when its really your fault that you don't have them.
DE teaches you how to work independently, how to analyse the material beyond the dictates of the textbook. It's a huge challenge and not all are up to it. Too many rely on what the teacher feeds them; they're unable to think for themselves. Try doing an extension subject by distance education. And because there are less kids in each subject you get the individual attention you may not be able to get in a normal school.
And no, they're not all stupid. There are people who accelerate in subjects and win national/international competitions. When you look at the high school/DE merged institutions you will find that more DE candidates get band 6s.
Of course, face to face schooling is better, I'm not going to refute that. But have you considered that some have little choice? And that you know nothing about DE or how it works? And that it's not so bad as it seems? And that the DE kids - not to mention the teachers, who are understaffed and work twice as hard as other teachers, since they have to teach inschool as well - might actually be offended by parts of this thread?
I'll leave you with comments from a former DE student. My situation was a bit different, but the 'inner journey' I've gone through is similar in a lot of aspects.
Distance Education has been both a great challenge and opportunity for me. Three years ago I left my sheltered and happy life in Sydney for what I thought would be a tropical paradise. ***** was not exactly what I had been expecting, and I was hurtled unto a new culture that for a long time was difficult to embrace. At first DE felt like a ball and chain holding me to my desk, and for the longest time I barely left the house. It was easy to live in denial, but slowly I began to realise that life wasn't so bad, and that *****, and DE, was not a prison sentence.
DE...opened many opportunities for me. It allowed me to escape the only other option which was boarding school and those hideous straw hats, and it also allowed me to live with my family in a new environment and culture so different to the Australian one that I'd accepted as the only way. Life in ***** was always interesting...
Having been rather isolated for three years I do not feel however like I have been alone. I have had my family with me and have kept in touch with my old friends, and gained many new ones through DE....
The support of teachers over the three years has been great and I have appreciated every phone call and check up email I have recieved...One thing you obtain doing DE as opposed to traditional school is a more relaxed relationship with school staff, so chatty emails have been lovely.
Having just finished Pathways (HSC over max 5 years, this girl did it over 2 - see you can't do that at a normal school) I'm looking back from the end of an era but also looking forward to the new one...
And my parting advice? Embrace DE for all that it can offer you, and be comforted and proud that you have taken the 'road less travelled by'. I can now say, from experience, that it 'has made all the difference'. What a journey it has been!
